Saturday, April 17, 2004
A Long Time Ago, In A Galería
Far, Far Away....
What a beautiful spring day! I'm outside most of today, and tomorrow - a date with a rental car.... Here's my weekly ‘roundup’ of wonderful photos taken from some of my favorite photoblogs. I've added a new feature to Galería this week: Click on any of these photos to see a larger version, then click the back button to return to the page
The artists are: Pixpopuli, Mused Pixelflake, TopLeftPixel, Myopic, ExitWound, InConduit, and Chromogenic. All of these are consistently great.
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Friday, April 16, 2004
The Virgin Mary's Retirement Home
Far From Florida...... on Turkey's Western Coast, facing Greece, Jesus's Mom lived out her final days in a little stone house. After Jesus was crucified, John the Apostle quickly got Mary out of Palestine for her own safety, settling her in a quiet little spot about 80 miles from Ephesus, which was the largest Roman city in the Eastern Mediterrean (and the best preserved). Erik and I visited Ephesus, and Mary's cottage, during our April 2002 Turkey vacation.
Silly Aaron...... tried to imitate the pilgrims that tear their clothing and tie it to the Virgin Mary's fence. Unwiling to tear my clothes, I removed my left sock and tied that instead. The result was both a smelly fence and a very very cold left foot marching around Turkey's 40F April. Happy Friday, everyone!this entry's permalink
Thursday, April 15, 2004
Ten Little What?
Yikes! The original title of Agatha Christie’s classic “And Then They Were None” is, unfortunately, “Ten Little Niggers”…. Thank God that our culture has changed quite a bit since its 1939 debut! I just heard this book on tape in Norwegian as “Ten Small Negro Children” – Ugh. “Niggers,” by the way is actually a 1920s British dance hall song based on the US’s own mid-1800s song “Ten Little Indians,” which is also not very P.C.. It's a children’s song where each Little Indian dies a different way until they’re all gone. The Christie novel (later made into a play and several movie versions) summoned ten strangers to a remote island so that they could be stalked, one by one, and punished for earlier ‘crimes,’ while they try to figure out which one of them is the killer; the murders are executed according to the lyrics of the song. When Hollywood bought the script they were, thankfully, horrified at the title and changed it to the more eerie and poetic “And Then They Were None.” 
In other news, I’m refinancing my mortgage on Friday! I locked in a great rate the week I got my job!I recently saw two movies through Netflix. One is “Bottle Rocket,” the debut film by Wes Anderson of “Royal Tennebaums” fame, which introduces the brilliant Wilson Brothers in a quirky little story about bickering, bungling bandits. The other is the lightweight and forgettable “Sliding Doors,” in which Gwyneth Paltrow fakes a British accent and leads two parallel and very different lives based on whether she missed her subway train or just made it… Not quite as good as a Twilight Zone rerun. I hope you enjoyed this post! Peace and Love - Aaron
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Wednesday, April 14, 2004
From real history exams: : - )
"Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper."
"Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years."
"Christians have only one spouse. This is called monotony."
"I asked the barmaid for a quickie. The man next to me said, 'It's pronounced quiche' " - - Luigi Amaduzzi (on occassional perils of speaking a foreign language)
For $404 I can go to Iceland for an extended Memorial Day weekend, round trip... Why would I want to do this, you ask? : - ) For starters, I need practice driving a stick shift, and Iceland is relatively unpopulated, and hence, easier safer. It's Europe's equivalent of driving in North Dakota. My goal is to be able to explore Europe and South America by car, and stick-shifting is a necessary skill. I can take lessons here on a stick shift, but it's impossible to rent one and practice. Anyway, Iceland also offers spectacular scenery and has strange geothermal features (geysers, hot springs, mudpots), similar to our Yellowstone. I'll have to mull this one over.
Is anybody out there? If you are reading this, let me know: Email me by clicking here. Thanks - Aaron
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"Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper."
"Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years."
"Christians have only one spouse. This is called monotony."
"I asked the barmaid for a quickie. The man next to me said, 'It's pronounced quiche' " - - Luigi Amaduzzi (on occassional perils of speaking a foreign language)
The World Is My Practice Area
For $404 I can go to Iceland for an extended Memorial Day weekend, round trip... Why would I want to do this, you ask? : - ) For starters, I need practice driving a stick shift, and Iceland is relatively unpopulated, and hence, easier safer. It's Europe's equivalent of driving in North Dakota. My goal is to be able to explore Europe and South America by car, and stick-shifting is a necessary skill. I can take lessons here on a stick shift, but it's impossible to rent one and practice. Anyway, Iceland also offers spectacular scenery and has strange geothermal features (geysers, hot springs, mudpots), similar to our Yellowstone. I'll have to mull this one over. Is anybody out there? If you are reading this, let me know: Email me by clicking here. Thanks - Aaron
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Tuesday, April 13, 2004
The Smartest Monkey...
That's a song title, referring to the human race, by the typically witty British art-rock band XTC. While watching a documentary about apes and chimps (Life of Mammals again), I was taken aback by their complex hierarchy and repressive social structure. And the extremes of behavior: grooming each other to gain favor, 'protection' arrangements, and a savage beating administered to 'teach a lesson' and 'set an example.' How could anyone doubt that these are our relatives? : - ) Being unusually hairy, I feel especially close to the apes. : - ) Here I am in Morocco, 16 months and 20 pounds ago, on market day 100 miles south of Marrakech. I went there in December 2002 with the French Institute, and got a surprisingly warm reception considering the post-9-11/intifada/George W times we're living in. "What luck for rulers that men do not think...." - Adolf Hitler
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Monday, April 12, 2004
Easy Come, Easy Go..
Well, my office days (see April 5 post) will be short-lived. I get bumped back to a cubicle in two weeks, April 26, as part of a group move. "Enjoy" it while it lasts, I guess... this entry's permalink
"T'was a woman that drove me to drink, and I never had the courtesy to thank her..." - W.C. Fields
"When choosing between two evils I always like to take the one I've never tried before." - Mae West
The Ripley You Didn’t See..
I always thought only bad movies went ‘straight-to-video/DVD.’ Not so. Patricia Highsmith’s "Ripley’s Game," made into a film starring John Maklovich, is reportedly excellent, complex, and chilling. However, the studio shelved it as ‘hard to market,’ as opposed to, say, Scooby Doo 2. : - ) Anyway, Netflix has it, and I hope to see it within a week or two. I’ll give you a full report. For your pleasure, here are some pictures of the author...
Also newly rentable, and near the top of my Netflix queue, is the critically acclaimed “House of Sand and Fog,” which Brian saw last week and was blown away by.
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"When choosing between two evils I always like to take the one I've never tried before." - Mae West
The Ripley You Didn’t See..
…But Still Can
I always thought only bad movies went ‘straight-to-video/DVD.’ Not so. Patricia Highsmith’s "Ripley’s Game," made into a film starring John Maklovich, is reportedly excellent, complex, and chilling. However, the studio shelved it as ‘hard to market,’ as opposed to, say, Scooby Doo 2. : - ) Anyway, Netflix has it, and I hope to see it within a week or two. I’ll give you a full report. For your pleasure, here are some pictures of the author...Also newly rentable, and near the top of my Netflix queue, is the critically acclaimed “House of Sand and Fog,” which Brian saw last week and was blown away by.
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Sunday, April 11, 2004
Up The Digital Learning Curve...
Had a great day at the Bronx Zoo with Christi and Nikki... ... and got some major use out of my digital camera, armed with sufficient memory and battery power. Best of all, I posted the best 12 pics (out of 130!) to my budding 'regular' web site so that I can share them with you here. These are polar bears on the left, which struck curious and entertaining poses as they frolicked in the spring air.
What barnyard animal is this? I have no idea, I'm sure it can't be a llama, and it seems to tall and white and grey to be a donkey... I'm such a city slicker... Help me out here!Here's a great shot of Nikki:
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